Tuesday, July 22, 2008

This little page has a great deal to say about "no-follow" as an SEO strategy - both plus and minus.

I'm going to reverse myself where I told you to get Dr. Andy's Website Builder. Or any other. If you're like me and work just at getting stuff online at all, then you don't have time to spend on building these SEO-optimized pages. True, you should build mini-webs, particularly if you can afford to invest in separate domain names for them. But worrying about linking them with no-follow is a no starter. Worry about how the user can find and make sense out of them first.

Main scene: Google is devaluating PageRank and has been for years. Things change. Except for one point this article points out - the key point is user experience and always has been. That's why the search engines are putting social media on the front pages: better content.

So don't worry about Michael Campbell's various diagrams to build mini-webs and so on. Concentrate on building websites with great content. (Now, you can build mini-webs that are subdomain-based and link only within themselves, particularly where you are selling an affiliate link or a particular product. That makes sense. One link on the main page which lets them out - but only to your ecommerce page or to a sales link. But again, we're getting pretty geeky here. Concentrate on great content, user experience and you'll win.)

How you build a top-notch, profitable web site:

Make a great landing page that is exciting and tells someone everything they need to know above the fold (first screen-full). Elevator pitch sells them on checking out the rest of the site. Has an opt-in for mail list, plus RSS feed.

Use templates to simplify your Navigation and page building.

Build with WordPress or similar blog function, where you don't have to worry too much about updating navigation links or search (even Dr. Andy is using this right now, as it simplifies adding pages immensely.)